If you’re rich and white, it’s probably best not to photograph yourself sitting on another human being, especially a nude human being, especially a black woman, ESPECIALLY on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The wife of a Russian billionaire, Dasha Zhukova, learned that obvious lesson yesterday, when a Russian fashion magazine published a photo of her sitting on a chair modeled after the half-naked female sculptures of British artist Allen Jones

Needless to say, the picture wasn’t received well, and it was quickly deleted from existence. Haha, yeah right.

Today, Zhukova apologized for the photo:

“This photograph, which has been published completely out of context, is of an artwork intended specifically as a commentary on gender and racial politics. I utterly abhor racism, and would like to apologise to anyone who has been offended by this image.” (Via)

Even in context, and with the knowledge that Russians honor MLK Day as much as Americans do Victory Day (that reminds me, I gotta buy a Victory Day card), I’m gonna guess this looks pretty bad. Rich people, man.

i kind of felt like that had to be a statement against racism as soon as i saw that. i mean, i really don’t think taking it any other way makes any sense. i don’t think a magazine would publish that if it were literal, i don’t think the model would agree to do the shoot if it were literal, i don’t feel that the emotions coming from the woman in the picture make it seem like it is literal…

Asking Russians to be sensitive about black/white race relations is like asking South Africans to be sensitive about Inuit/Canadian fishing agreement relations. They don’t really have any concept of what you are talking about.

This controversy is really stupid and Amero-centric.
I actually was born on Soviet Victory in Europe Day (May 9)–which is a much bigger deal in Russia than MLK day is here–and make a concerted effort not to give a shit about it because *I am not Russian and it would make no sense for me to be sensitive to a Russian holiday*